My
gut feeling is that Clinton's email midemeanours will be overlooked
(along with her corruption and war crimes) and the
Establishment will choose her as the candidate to lose against Trump.

Think
1968.

As
Clinton crisis intensfies, Sanders pledges to back Democratic Party
nominee

By
Patrick Martin30 May 2016

With
eight days to go before the final round of presidential primaries,
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders reiterated his pledge to support
Hillary Clinton if she prevails in the campaign for the Democratic
nomination.

In
an interview recorded Saturday and broadcast on NBC’s “Meet the
Press” program Sunday, Sanders repeatedly declared that his top
priority was to ensure the defeat of the presumptive Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump.

In
response to a question from interviewer Chuck Todd about whether he
had a responsibility to ensure his supporters voted for Clinton if
she wins the nomination, Sanders said, “The responsibility that I
accept in a very, very serious way is to do everything that I can to
make sure that Donald Trump will not become elected president of the
United States. Donald Trump, for a dozen different reasons, would be
a disaster as president. I will do everything that I can to make sure
that does not happen.”

Todd
pressed him to discuss his “responsibility to do what it takes to
bring your supporters onboard with her. Do you accept that
responsibility?” The interviewer continued, “You just said you
want to do whatever it takes to stop him. You don’t believe you
need to be out there telling your supporters, ‘You may not be happy
with Hillary Clinton, but she’s better than him’?”

Sanders
replied, “Well, no question about that. No question about that. But
where my mind is right now is to do everything that I can in the
remaining caucuses and primaries to try to win them and make the
case. But if your question is do I think that Secretary Clinton is
significantly a better candidate for America than is Donald Trump,
that is not a debate. Of course that is true.”

This
response was a clear signal of the two-track policy that Sanders is
carrying out in the final stages of the Democratic primary campaign.
He has issued a series of protests and demands over the organization
of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, combined with
reassurances of his support for the eventual nominee, presumed to be
Clinton.

Including
pledged “super delegates,” Clinton is expected to reach the 2,383
delegates required for nomination when polls close in New Jersey June
7, the first of six states to hold primaries or caucuses that day. At
least one cable network, MSNBC, has indicated it will project a
Clinton victory in the overall nomination contest even before polls
have closed in states further west, including California, which
accounts for 475 of the 684 delegates to be awarded June 7.

On
Friday, the Sanders campaign sent a letter to party officials
demanding the replacement of the Clinton campaign’s choices to head
the rules committee and the platform committee, former Representative
Barney Frank and Connecticut Governor Daneel Malloy, with more
neutral figures. This was flatly rejected, although Democratic
National Committee Chair Debbie Wassermann Schultz did agree to name
five top Sanders delegates, including Cornel West and James Zogby, to
the platform committee.

While
media commentators have presented Sanders’ pledge to continue his
campaign right up to the convention as a defiant challenge to
Clinton, there is another explanation for the series of demands and
apparent displays of intransigence: Sanders is seeking to keep the
attention of his own supporters focused on the Democratic convention,
even after Clinton clinches the nomination.

He
is seeking to foster the illusion that the July convention in
Philadelphia, an assemblage of political hacks and representatives of
corporate America, will be responsive to the left-wing sentiments of
the youth and working people who have rallied in support of Sanders.

Some
10 million people have voted for Sanders in the Democratic primaries
and caucuses, a shift in popular consciousness which has taken the
entire two-party political establishment—including Sanders
himself—and the corporate-controlled media by surprise.

The
endgame in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is
how to contain this leftward movement within safe channels, by
delivering Sanders supporters, who are overwhelmingly hostile to the
Wall Street politics and warmongering with which Hillary Clinton is
identified, into Clinton’s grasp.

Sanders
has more or less openly advised the Clinton campaign that they need
to make concessions on the platform and in naming a vice presidential
running mate if he is to be able to control the revulsion among his
supporters to a Clinton nomination.

In
response to further questions on Meet the Press, Sanders said, “I
would hope, if I am not the nominee, that the vice presidential
candidate will not be from Wall Street, will be somebody who has a
history of standing up and fighting for working families, taking on
the drug companies whose greed is doing so much harm, taking on Wall
Street, taking on corporate America, and fight for a government that
works for all of us, not just the one percent.”

Given
several opportunities to deny any interest in being that vice
presidential candidate, Sanders only repeated, “Right now, my focus
is on winning the nomination,” leaving Todd to conclude, “Fair
enough, you’re not ruling it out.”

The
Clinton campaign was staggered this week by a State Department
inspector-general’s report assailing her use of a private email
server throughout her four years as Secretary of State in the Obama
administration, and by polls showing her virtually tied with Sanders
in California.

If
Clinton loses California, along with Montana, South Dakota, North
Dakota and New Mexico on June 7, winning only New Jersey, she will
have lost 16 of the final 23 states to hold primaries or caucuses,
the worst-ever showing of any victorious candidate for a Democratic
or Republican presidential nomination—if she ends up getting the
nomination.

The
Democratic political establishment is bending all its efforts to
dragging Clinton across the finish line. Appearing on the ABC Sunday
interview program “This Week,” Senator Diane Feinstein of
California denounced suggestions that the email scandal could derail
Clinton’s nomination. She said of Sanders, “He ought to be able
to read the signposts as well as anybody else. And if he did that he
would know that it’s all but over.”

Feinstein
was in effect dismissing the right of voters in her own state, whose
primary is nine days away, to participate in the selection of a
nominee—an indication of the contempt for democratic rights that
prevails throughout the US ruling elite and its political
representatives.

Cenk
Uygur over at the Young Turks had the interview of a lifetime. He
just interviewed Bernie Sanders, and it was a mind-blower.

Today
on The Young Turks Cenk Uygur interviewed Bernie Sanders and asked
the question:

“Now,
a lot of the people in the movement have decided that you are their
leader, partly because you’re running for President, but you look
at some recent polls of millennials, they have you by far the most
popular politician; but they actually have you as more popular as a
person they’d like to meet above Beyonce`, okay that’s a hell of
a thing…

But
you have convinced them that Hillary Clinton is the establishment
candidate. If you were to lose, and the Democratic party comes to you
and says take this movement that is full of energy and that is
against the establishment, and make sure they vote for the
establishment candidate, what do you say?”

Bernie’s
answer was gold, and left things up in the air on whether he would
back Hillary or go his own way…

Well..
what I say: Number one I’m not that big into being a “leader”…
I’d much rather prefer to see a lot of leaders and a lot of
grassroots activism.

Number
two, what we do is together, as a nation .. as a growing movement is
we say: “If
we don’t win..”and
by the way we are in this thing to win, please understand that. “What
is the Democratic establishment gonna do for us?”

From
this exchange we can surmise that there’s no guarantee that he will
blindly back the Democratic Party’s candidate if we get
nothing out of doing so.

Depending
on how things look in July, an Independent run could be in the
works. He’s said he probably wouldn’t consider it – but that
was months ago.That was before this got messy.

It
was before millions of people were disenfranchised in Arizona and
likely will be in future contests. It was before Bill Clinton started
showing up at polling places in Massachusetts and Illinois
blocking traffic, and delaying voters from getting to the polls.
The more people that are cast aside during this election, the more
angry we as a movement get.. and the more angry Bernie gets..if it
keeps going like this there will be a fever pitch where we all
going to band together and “Bern down” the establishment
together.

If
Trump wins the nomination, it’s likely that Republicans might throw
in a third party candidate, or if there’s a brokered convention and
Trump loses even though he has a majority of the delegates – he may
run as an Independent. If it’s Hillary Clinton facing two right
wing candidates, Bernie would stand a lot better chance. Some are
even saying that if it’s between Trump and Hillary that both
candidates have such low favorability ratings that Bernie Sanders
could still win against the both of them.

When
asked whether he really believes that Hillary Clinton would keep any
of her promises that she’s made since Iowa when she switched up her
whole platform, he said basically that it’s very doubtful. You can
see her thinking prematurely that she’s already won, and already
she’s moving back to center on the issues.

People
see her dishonesty, and only her die hard supporters don’t see
through it.

Bernie
quoted Tom Donahue head of the Chamber of Commerce who said: “Don’t
worry what she said in the campaign, she’s just trying to match
Bernie Sanders. If she’s elected, I think she’ll be okay on the
TPP”.

Watch
the full interview below (by the way the part about whether he’d
back the establishment candidate or not is around the 16 minute
mark).